Radiation damage to Hubble has been 4.3 years out of phase with the Solar cycle (arxiv.org)
41 points by pppone 2 hours ago
ck2 2 hours ago
you should see what cosmic rays do to space telescopes
public almost never sees what raw images look like
RAW https://blog.galaxyzoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/spiral...
FINAL https://blog.galaxyzoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/spiral...
* https://blog.galaxyzoo.org/2010/04/12/how-to-handle-hubble-i...
they also slowly destroy the sensors since they are physical particles moving at almost the speed of light
netsharc an hour ago
Reminds me of the radiation after Chernobyl causing flashes on the physical film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOLBEx5DBaE
plmpsu 36 minutes ago
Oh wow, I thought those were stars at first.
r_lee an hour ago
thanks for the links, that's really interesting to look at
do you happen to know how exactly those artifacts are cleaned up?
shrubble an hour ago
One way is to take a “blank” picture which will then show just the noise; then use that as a reference for what can be removed from the image.
rbanffy an hour ago
lofaszvanitt an hour ago
photoshop ;D, or using multiple pictures
superkuh 2 hours ago
It's well known that higher solar wind/CMEs density/speed/etc that comes with the peak of the 11 year intensity cycles scatters cosmic rays before they enter the inner heliosphere. Combine this with the 1~3 years it takes for the solar wind to travel out through the heliosphere and you get the phase difference. Really cool unintended sensor empirical data on it though.
Don't try to correlate with the sun spots, correlate with the solar wind/cmes from the spots getting out far enough to effectively scatter the incoming cosmic rays away.
3lambda 37 minutes ago
I thought it only takes a few days for solar wind to travel from the sun to the Earth? Can you clarify?
terminalbraid 2 hours ago
The paper claims directly "the rate of degradation over time remains unsatisfactorily unpredictable" but you are claiming the authors do not understand or are unaware of the point you are making?
superkuh 2 hours ago
I think what I explained is known by anyone in solar physics. I cannot believe they would not have discussed it. It's absence in the paper is weird. But I think unpredictable refers more to LEO in the context of the paper where things are indeed more dynamic that just the 11 year periodicity of cosmic rays from solar activity causing scattering in the heliosphere.
DANmode an hour ago
Identifying a mechanism is not predicting its rate.
There may be another variable they’re trying to pin down.